This is an application for supplemental funding for a SCORE program at New Mexico State University (NMSU) at Las Cruces. A goal of NMSU is to expand research at the institution for participation by ethnic minority students who desire to pursue careers in the biomedical science disciplines. The proposed SCORE Program has as its goals: (1) To significantly improve the capabilities of NMSU to conduct biomedically relevant research by increasing the numbers of faculty who conduct biomedical research, increasing the numbers of trained research personnel, increasing the inventory of specialized single-user research instrumentation, and improving the capacity to maintain research instrumentation; (2) To significantly improve the quantity and quality of biomedical research conducted at NMSU by broadening grantsmanship efforts of faculty participants and increasing the numbers and quality of research publications; (3) To integrate the activities of the SCORE Program with an anticipated RISE Program to maximize resources for training minority scientists in the biomedical sciences by engaging students in SCORE Program research projects; (4) To increase the capacity of NMSU to self-evaluate, assess, and monitor its multi-component research programs by engaging trained personnel in the SCORE Program's evaluation plan and subjecting the Program to annual review by an external evaluation committee. [unreadable] [unreadable] This application contains research proposals for four research subprojects and one pilot subproject. Disciplines represented among the project proposals are diverse. They include bioinorganic chemistry (Johnson), swainosine biosynthetic pathway elucidation (Creamer), fungal pathogenesis (Dawe), symbiotic microbiology (Nishiguchi), and molecular systematics and comparative analyses of mitochondrial evolution (Wright). Specific areas proposed for investigation include: The synthesis of model inorganic iron complexes of oxidation states (VI), (V), and (IV) which mimic the complexes of iron formed by non-heme iron oxidase enzymes; the elucidation of the biosynthetic pathway for the animal toxin, swainosine, by cooperative enzymatic reactions from Embellisia and Astrogalus fungi and infected locoweed hosts; evolutionary mechanisms of specificity and colonization in systems comprised of the bobtail squid and its Vibrio symbiont; functional analysis of genes controlling fungal anastomosis and their relationship to the spread of fungal viruses and programmed cell death responses; and DNA sequencing for the purpose of molecular systematics and comparative analyses of molecular evolution of mitochondria. [unreadable] [unreadable] NMSU has an existing SCORE Program which was initiated on June 1, 2000, and renewed on June 1, 2004. This Program currently funds eleven regular subprojects and no pilot subprojects. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]